


Unholy

by honeysweetcutie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Hermione Granger, Demon Draco, Demons, Exorcism, F/M, Sigils, Tattoo Artist Hermione, Tattooed Draco Malfoy, Vampire Draco, oh no we have to BEEP or we die!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:03:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeysweetcutie/pseuds/honeysweetcutie
Summary: The pain increased, intensifying yet again like a wildfire bursting. It swelled and swelled until he thought he might pass out. Inside, he could feel the anger of the demon rising as it realized another sigil was being put in place.He hoped it didn't speak again.DARK DEMON/VAMPIRE HYBRID FIC.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 72





	1. Trigger Warnings and Notes

**Hi.**   
**I made it about two weeks and I thrive off of attention so here is a new story.**

This story has not been Brit-picked, it's a weird Muggle/supernatural AU, and it's borderline dead dove-y. It's completely borne of my crazy-ass head. I know I said I was gonna leave fandom, but without attention, demons like me cannot thrive.

This is tattooed Black Hermione and tattooed MGK Draco~

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This is being uploaded for archive purposes so that it is always clear who wrote it. There is no rhyme or reason to this fic, and it has 2 chapters written. There will be more. I don't know if I wanna make it a smutshot or extend it—we'll see what everyone thinks lol.

When the story is complete, it will be uploaded onto my website for easy reading. You just go to honeysweetwriting dot com / fanfictions, and the pdf will be there.

 **DO NOT FEEL INCLINED TO LEAVE A REVIEW**. Simply enjoy reading without the pressure of leaving a comment~

* * *

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS:**  
DEAD DOVE

Toxic relationships

Demons

Vampires

Blood drinking

Language

Verbal abuse

Drug use - marijuana

A " _oh no we have to fck or we die_ " scene that is technically dub-con

Violence

_If you believe I have missed a trigger warning at any time, kindly send me a respectful PM and I will add it in if I agree!_

* * *

**As always, I write trauma from personal experience so be mindful and respectful in your reviews. I monitor them all-including signed-in ones.**

**Thank you!**


	2. Chapter One

****

_cover art drawn by me!_

* * *

**Unholy**

**Chapter One**

She was fine.

Draco could smell it in the air that she was fine.

Relief settled low in the pit of his stomach as he approached her door, his senses piquing at her scent moving back and forth across the living room. He could feel her distress, running along her veins like flames.

He hadn't meant to alarm her. It hadn't quite been a full moon cycle yet but his last sigil had already burned away. The energy was gone, leaving nothing behind but the tattoo. That's all his skin was covered in—hollow barriers written in black ink across pale, white flesh that hadn't seen life in years. Because he was dead, the sigils were only temporary.

At least, that's what he assumed was the problem.

Draco rapped on the door with two of his tattooed knuckles, a lazy tilt to his head as he waited for her to answer. In the pocket of his slacks, his phone vibrated. He pulled it out just far enough to glance at the screen. His ex-girlfriend was calling.

The door swung open right as he pressed the red button.

Hermione stood there, her hair a massive, tangled halo of kinky curls and her brown eyes narrowed up at him. She wore an oversized tee shirt and a pair of leggings, and the tawny brown of her skin was slick with some sort of skincare. He could smell the aloe and citrus.

"What do you want?" she said, tone flat. She had a new tattoo—an owl on her right forearm. It fit in nicely with the countless other bird tattoos that littered her arms.

"I'm here to see you."

"Yeah, right." She crossed her arms over her chest. "It's not the end of the cycle yet. Why are you here?"

Draco took a step closer, all six feet and three inches of his height looming over her. She craned her neck, the sneer unbecoming on a face as regal as her own. His eyes flickered up and down her face.

He didn't want to tell her that the sigil had failed early but he knew he had to. They were both in danger if this method stopped working.

"I'm here to see you."

"Oh, God." She threw her gaze Heavenward and tossed her left hand into the air. He saw a flash of the moon she had tattooed on the back. In a sarcastic tone, she said, "Well, come on in then, why don't you?"

The corner of his lip twitched as he stepped into her house, ducking down so he didn't hit his head on the door frame. Once inside the small one-bedroom house, he straightened to his full height, reaching for the button on his blazer. He unbuttoned it, watching her in silence as he removed the article of clothing.

Once it was tossed onto the table, he started on the top button of his shirt.

"Seriously—why are you here?" she asked, a hesitancy to her acidic tone that he could already smell before it left her lips. She was always scared of him, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. He intimidated her.

It made him feel powerful.

"Do you have your gun?"

"What do you mean, 'do I have my gun'? Obviously. Do you think I'd leave my thousand-dollar tattoo gun at the shop where anyone could just break in and steal it?"

"Watch your attitude," he snapped, eyes flashing as his fingers slid the last button smoothly out of the hole. He dropped his shirt onto the table atop his blazer and stood before her, shirtless with tattoos on display.

Her gaze flickered downward, traversing the planes of the ink-black designs that covered his body. They twisted their way up from the backs of his hands, across the breadth of his chest, and down to the toned expanse of his abdomen. To anyone who had no knowledge of them, they would have looked like interesting designs.

But they were the only thing keeping him from consumption.

"Or else what?" she challenged.

He stared at her, hard. Until she cleared her throat and gave him a disdainful once-over. Draco couldn't understand why if her gaze was so full of hatred, inside, he could only sense her curiosity.

"So, what? You're here for another free tattoo?"

"They're not tattoos," he said, running his fingers backward through his hair. He studied her, watching the way she always seemed to fidget beneath his gaze.

"And yet."

"Hermione, stop being such a fucking _cunt_ ," he snarled, the demon stretching inside of him in its slumber.

Her eyebrows shot up.

"Sorry," he mumbled, shaking his head. "That wasn't me."

"Oh, it wasn't you." Her hands went to her hips. "So, the demon's awake and took over your body?"

"No, obviously not."

"Then it _was_ you, and you're a fucking jerk."

"Come _on_!" he said angrily, desperation raising his tone to a sharp edge. "I just—I need another one. Okay?

"You have twelve sigils tattooed on you. You're telling me every single on of them has lost its power? It devoured the energy from every single one?"

"Yes," he growled, clenching his teeth as a wave of pain rushed through his body. He'd been experiencing it all day, agony crashing against his shores as the demon consumed his soul little by little. "And now I need another one."

"Have you fed?"

"No."

"Then, no. You need to go feed—" She gestured to the front door with her head. "—and _then_ you can come back."

"I can't feed right now."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Why not?"

He glowered at her. "Because it's easier."

"Yeah, right." She scoffed. "As if it's easy to exist in a place where you can smell my blood and just ignore it."

His gaze snapped to meet hers, crimson irises cutting across the dim afternoon lighting, piercing into her.

"It's not."

She shrunk back but covered it up by tousling her massive curls back. "So which is the easy part?"

"The tattoo," he explained, cracking his neck to hide a shudder. "It's more bearable when I haven't fed."

"Hm."

Hermione said nothing. He didn't have to explain it to her because she knew. Tattooing the sigils felt like he was bathing in acid. She didn't use regular black ink.

She used black ink mixed with holy water and a few drops of her blood.

"So can you do it or not?" He closed his eyes against another wave of pain. Panic was starting to war with his irritation, turning to desperation. He really didn't want to scare her. "Because if not, then I need to go. Now."

"Are you . . . Is it . . . ?"

" _Yes_ ," he ground out, hands turning knuckle-white where they gripped the back of the chair. He squeezed his eyes shut again. The demon was awake, its darkness spreading through his core.

It was feeding.

"I'll do it," she said, and her tone was less vitriolic. "But you have to promise to keep your hunger in check. Can you do it?"

"I can," he said, but he wasn't sure.

"All right, then just chill while I go get my shit."

She bustled off down the hallway to her bedroom, leaving Draco to sink into the chair. He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward, burying his face into them. He was starting to shiver, the pain lacing its way through every inch of his body. He would have cried if he'd wouldn't rather die first.

He wished she would just let him have a taste.

Draco had never told her, but the moment that holy ink had first sunk into his skin, the feeling of her blood inside of him had forced him into a ravenous state. It was only through sheer will that he didn't attack her last month. The combination of the demon's desire and his own was always overwhelming.

And he was getting weaker. He could feel it.

"I looked through it again," she said, her voice getting louder as she reentered the room, "and I still can't make sense of the third thing the ritual calls for."

Hermione set her bag on the table, which Draco knew held her tattooing supplies as well as the flask of holy water, the razor blades, and the First Aid Kit. Her body brushed against his bare arm and he bit his tongue to stop himself from hissing. Being near her felt like an ache.

This was where the hard part started.

"I'm willing to bet this is why the sigils keep burning away," she said, pulling her tools out of the bag. She shook her head. "Let me tell you somethin'—if we don't get this figured out, then we need to have a serious talk."

Draco stared at her throat. She was so short that when he sat up, his gaze was level with her pulse. He could see it pulsing, throbbing with the elixir that flowed through her veins. He wanted to taste it. To taste her.

"About what?" he murmured, the pain warring with his hunger.

"The future. I can't keep doing this every month for the rest of my life. And what happens when I get too old to tattoo? What happens if I get like, _arthritis_ or something? Or what happens when I die?"

_To see you die would be so sweet._

Draco nearly scrambled off of the chair. He'd heard the voice in his head as clear as day, though a faint whisper at the back of his mind. His entire body was rigid, vibrating with something he could neither name nor place.

"You won't die," he said, swallowing past the drying in his throat.

"I don't wanna be a vampire," she said, her tone icy. "Don't play with me. If you listen to anything I say, it's that I _do not_ want to be like you."

_Like you._

_Like you._

_Let's see what she's like inside._

Draco squeezed his eyes shut as he fought with the voice in his head. It wasn't his voice. It wasn't his thoughts. He knew who it was.

It was the demon.

They needed to get the sigil on, and fast.

"Here. Bowl's already packed. Get going while I set up."

Draco glanced over to see she was holding a blue glass pipe and a lighter out to him. He took them from her, immediately holding the pipe to his lips and lighting it. The smoke filling his lungs was a welcome experience.

Weed was the only thing that helped with the pain. It wouldn't lessen it by much, but it would make it bearable.

It was better than killing Hermione.

"Where do you want it this time?" she asked. "Your back? You've got some room in there with your other tattoos."

He took another drag on the pipe.

"Yeah," he said on the exhalation of the smoke. "Just put it somewhere back there."

Draco sat there in silence for the next few minutes while Hermione prepped his skin and began tattooing. The buzzing of the gun coupled with the relaxing effects of the weed were the only thing he had to hold onto before the pain set in. The needles slamming in and out of his flesh were nothing compared to what was coming.

It started in the surface layers of his skin, like it always did. And then, like always, his body seemed to catch up and realize that there was holy water in the ink. That was when the burning started, intense and deep-reaching as it spread through his entire body and pushed a sting to his eyes. The water and ink seeping into his skin, he felt the flames of the demon's Hellfire beginning to crawl toward the sigil, where he knew it would start to consume it.

Draco's leg began to bounce.

"Just hang in there," Hermione said quietly from where she stood behind him, her gloved hands pressing into his skin. "You know what? Can you turn and straddle the chair? I'm gonna sit on the table and lean forward."

Draco nodded, not trusting of his ability to talk without making it known how much pain he was already in. He turned around and straddled the chair, folding his arms on top of the back. He hunched over and rested his cheek on his forearm.

Hermione hopped up onto the table, her toes resting on the front of the chair right behind him as she leaned over. She resumed tattooing, the needles and burning combining to make his skin feel raw.

The pain increased, intensifying yet again like a wildfire bursting. It swelled and swelled until he thought he might pass out. Inside, he could feel the anger of the demon rising as it realized another sigil was being put in place.

He hoped it didn't speak again.

"Fuck," he said, his voice bordering on a whine. He gasped, burying his face in his arms while his leg continued to bounce and bounce and bounce.

"Is it the needles?" she asked, pausing.

"No. It's the ink. The water. Just keep going."

"Are you—"

"Just _fucking_ keep going!" he snarled, feeling another twinge of agony in his shoulder. "I want this over with."

"Don't snap at me, or I'm stabbing you in the back of the neck with this, bitch," Hermione snarled right back. "I'm almost done. Damn."

_If she touches us, we kill her._

No. God damn it. _No_.

It was still able to speak. What did this mean? Was the sigil burning away even faster? Was it taking over?

Fear that he hadn't felt in five years washed over his psyche.

What if it hurt her?

"All right, I'm done." She sat back, wiping his skin. "It looks good, not that it matters. It fits in with your other ones."

"Fine." He stood up, turning to look down at her.

She leaned back a bit, the tattoo gun in one hand and the dirty cloth in the other. Her eyes were wide, her knees touching his hips as he stood between them. The thoughts and words he'd meant to voice seemed to have dissipated.

He always forgot how pretty she was this close.

"What do we do if this one burns away?" she asked, searching his eyes. She still had her usual irritable expression on her face, but the only emotion he sensed from her was calm. She wasn't angry and she wasn't scared.

She had no idea that the demon could speak now.

"We'll just have to do another one," Draco said, clearing his throat as the pain continued chip away at his sanity. He was so sick of this. "Unless you really want to stop."

"I _do_ want to stop," Hermione said, setting the cloth and the gun on the table. She pulled off the gloves with her teeth, flashes of white against the dark brown of her lips. "I don't want to see you every month."

Draco felt his heart sinking into his chest, another, deeper pain taking root in his spirit. Even though their friendship had dissolved months ago, it still hurt to see her hatred. He could feel it like a knife in his flesh.

Suddenly, her hand was gripping his chin, fingers dinging into his cheeks as she turned her face back toward him. She was looking him in the eyes, about to say something serious, but all he could feel was pain. Pain, and the demon.

_She touches._

_She touches us._

_She touches us with her skin and we want to peel it off._

_STUPID FUCKING WHORE. GET HER HAND OFF OF US BEFORE WE EAT IT._

"But unlike _you,_ I keep my promises," she said, completely unaware of the horrific voice inside his head.

Draco couldn't take it anymore.

He snatched her wrist away from him, twisting her arm until it was behind her back. Hermione let out a cry of pain as her back arched, pressing their chests together. Leering down at her, he looked at her through his lashes.

 _Now_ he could feel her fear. He could smell it like death lingering in the air of a cemetery.

"I've told you before not to touch me," he said quietly. "Do what the fuck I tell you to do."

"Let go of me before I cut your throat with my fucking nails." Her hazel eyes blazed like the Hellfire that was already burning away at the new sigil.

 _We can pull all of her nails out one-by-one,_ the demon whispered. _And we can make her lick the blood._

He flinched and let her go, turning away from her.

"I can sleep here, right?"

"You have to," she said as though nothing had happened. "Otherwise the sigil will fail before we even wake up."

"That was just my theory," he mumbled, carding long, trembling fingers through his platinum blond hair. A few strands shifted forward again as he looked down at the floor. "You need more protection just in case it does."

"You can take the couch, and it'll be fine." She headed over to the sink to wash her hands. "The only time the sigil failed, we realized it was because you left the house that night. I guess you just have to be in close proximity to me for it to work. I don't think it's a theory."

Draco glanced over at the couch, knowing he wouldn't be sleeping for even one moment that night. No matter if the moon were waxing or waning, he couldn't leave her side until the following night if he wanted it to hold.

Not that he was certain this one would hold.

"What about your door? Did you—"

"Yes," she bit out through clenched teeth, pointing an acrylic nail down the hallway. The black nail polish glittered in the fading sunlight. "I painted it the day before yesterday."

"Will it protect you?"

"I don't know," she said. The anger now rolling off of her in waves. "The sigil is supposed to keep demons out. The Opus doesn't say anything about the possessed."

"Are you sure it's not a translation error?" he asked, flexing his arm against the burning as the sigil's energy settled scorching hot into his muscle. He spread his fingers out, gritting his teeth as the pain began to increase. "I thought you said your Aramaic was good."

"Um, I said I passed the class. I didn't say that I was good at it."

"Why would you lie? I _told_ you I'd go get a fucking priest. It would—"

"Boy, shut your ass up!" She whirled on him, slamming her water glass down on the counter. She'd filled it without him noticing. "You came to _me_ for help and then attacked me. If you wouldn't have attacked me, you wouldn't have gotten me marked. If I wasn't marked, then we wouldn't have to be doing this shit to keep the demon at bay."

He closed his eyes, feeling his rage flaring like sunlight inside his chest. He counted, knowing that under no circumstances could he let his emotions get the best of him when the sigil was still working. He could already feel that the others had failed, their magic long ago burning away with the demon's Hellfire.

"Count yourself lucky that it was me who marked you and not another vampire," he said, his words slow and measured words. "Another vampire would have killed you."

" _Another vampire_ wouldn't have gotten himself possessed by a demon, now would he have?" she said, sneering again. She looked him up and down.

"And I was supposed to know that the guy was possessed . . . How?"

"Maybe if you didn't _eat people_ to stay _alive_ , you never would have bitten him in the _first_ place!"

He stared at her for a moment, cold and calculating. Inside, he could feel the demon stirring. It hated it when she yelled. It made it angry when she yelled. But the sigil was strong enough to keep it back.

For now.

This had all begun when he was hungry.

Having been a relatively new vampire of only five years, he wasn't exactly well-versed in the things that vampires were susceptible to. He ate when he want, slept when he wanted, and played when he wanted. The world was his.

Until the night he'd fed from the wrong person.

It had been a guy outside a club—seemingly drunk out of his mind and fresh out of a fight with some other drunkard. His blood was cloying, the sweet scent of it a beacon to any vampire nearby. Since Draco had been the only one, he took his time stalking after him in the city. It was Anaheim, after all.

No one would notice if he shoved him into an alley to feed.

But unfortunately, the man was not drunk.

He was possessed.

As Draco drained him, he didn't realize that the reason why his blood tasted so enticing wasn't due to liquor. He didn't realize that it was a demon passing into his body little-by-little, until the man was dead and Draco was fucked.

The only thing Draco had been able to figure out was that the only time he'd felt any reprieve before the first sigil was when he'd accidentally bitten her.

After multiple visits to a priest where they'd told him the lie that it was research for a "project," Draco had obtained a book from the church called The Opus. It was full of rituals that were to be used for various demonic activities, including the one they'd chosen: a protection ritual meant to keep a demon at bay. The book was written entirely in Aramaic, as it was older than time itself, and the coincidence that Hermione had taken an Aramaic class in college was exactly what they needed.

That, and holy water, the blood of the demonologist performing the ritual, and something else that Hermione hadn't been able to translate.

The ritual had called for the sigils to be permanently _'attached'_ or ' _adhered_ ' to the flesh. And the only thing Hermione, a woman covered in more tattoos than him, could think of that could do such a thing was a tattoo gun. And thus the idea for tattooing the sigil came to life.

It was just too bad the demon's Hellfire burned the sigil away every moon cycle.

When a vampire bit a human, it automatically marked them. No other vampire could feed from them and that human belonged to the vampire for as long as it took to drain them. And since Draco had bitten her and stopped himself from killing her—or rather, the pain of the demon beginning to consume his soul stopped him—it had left her alive and marked, which was why he could feel her emotions.

So when he'd bitten her, tasting her blood for that brief moment, he hadn't realized that the demon wanted her blood, too.

"Well, you know what could solve this."

"No."

"Granger—"

" _No_." She glared at him with the simmering hatred she held for him. "Absolutely not. You can get fucked."

"You know it's why the sigils aren't lasting long," he said in a low tone, holding her gaze across the room. "I can't just drink random blood. It has to be the demonologist."

"I'm not a demonologist."

"But you _are_ the one who performed the ritual, and you _are_ the one who tattooed the sigil."

"And the last time we tried, you almost _killed_ me! So _no_ , you're not doing it again!" she cried, the spike in volume causing the demon to stir again. "You can come over to get new sigils, and you can sleep on the couch until they set in, but then you _need_ to _leave._ You need to get the fuck out of my house and stay away until the next moon cycle!"

"I didn't force you into this," Draco hissed, his hand flexing into a tight fist. He squeezed his eyes shut as the sigil's magic dug deeper. It hurt like a bitch. "I asked you for help. I was the one who found the Opus and brought it to you. You could have declined."

"I did decline."

His eyes snapped open and locked with hers. "Then why do you keep adding new sigils? Why not just—" He waved his other hand, biting back a groan of pain as his freshly-tattooed shoulder was jostled by the movement. "—tell me no and turn me away?"

"Yeah, because you'd let me fucking live if I did that!" she shrieked, eyes wild. "Are you dumb, Draco?! It's been a year. An entire _year_ of this shit, and there's no ending in sight!Do you really think I don't know that those sigils are the only reason why you haven't killed me? Without this—without the sigils—then I'm just a human who knows your secret!"

A lance, right through the center of his damn heart.

Did she not realize she was _more_?

"So you're doing this just to keep yourself alive?" He rubbed his jaw, breathing a laugh. "That's all you care about now. You don't care if I die, just so long as you don't."

" _You don't have the right to be hurt!"_ she screamed, grabbing the glass and tossing it so hard into the sink that it shattered. She spun to face him, one hand on her hip and the other pointing angrily across the small kitchen at him. "You don't have the right to feel hurt by the fact that I don't want you around me when _you're_ the one who bit me! _You_ are the one who broke his promise! I don't owe you _shit_ , little boy, and—" She let out a cry of rage, hands framing her face by her temples in frustration. "If you don't get the _fuck_ out of my house, I'm going to _scream_!"

A mental image was pressed into his mind. It was dark and hazy but he knew where it came from.

It came from the deep.

Hermione, with her throat torn out. Hermione, with blood dripping down the front of her body. Hermione, twitching in her final moments as she took rattling non-breaths through torn flesh. Hermione, with the sweetest blood spilling across his tongue and fueling him.

Fueling it.

Fueling the demon.

Draco's rage burst like a river behind a dam, flooding his body with ire.

"Lower your _fucking_ voice when you talk to me!" Draco roared, rearing to his full height. "You raise your voice again, and I'll pin you to the _fucking_ counter and drain you. Do you _fucking_ hear what I'm saying to you?!"

Hermione's facial expression hardened to stone but in her scent, both Draco and the demon could sense that she was terrified. She knew that if the sigil failed right then like it was _already_ failing, they were fucked.

"Calm down," she said, her voice tremulous. "If you get out of control, then the sigil won't hold."

"I know." He stumbled backward, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Just—fuck. I know."

She pursed her lips, the wariness in her eyes loud enough without the addition of her scent to show him she neither trusted nor felt comfortable around him right now. Which was sad, given that they'd been friends since before he was turned. She was his tattoo artist—she'd done the other tattoos on his body long before this situation ever came about.

But she hated him now.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

When Draco was turned and Hermione found out, he'd promised her he'd never feed off of her.

A few days after he'd first fed off of the possessed man, Draco had gone to see her at her shop and get a tattoo. He'd been in full-body pain for days, unsure as to why even though he was feeding like normal, he didn't feel sated.

As the tattooing had gone on, Hermione chattering his ear off about a crazy customer she'd had that day who'd wanted her to tattoo his pelvis, Draco had been able to feel his hunger materializing. Worsening, until he was ravenous.

He made it until she finished the outline.

Hermione had looked at him strangely, asking him if he was okay, and he'd lost it.

He was on her faster than she could blink with his hand around the underside of her chin and his fangs bared. There was only time for her to gasp before he sunk his fangs into her pulse and took a deep, groaning drink.

The fact that he'd loved her for so long was the only reason why he was able to fight through it and move backward, away from her. But as he'd stood there in the center of the shop, blood dripping from his fangs and jaw, he'd known something was seriously wrong.

He didn't hurt anymore.

Now, one year later, their friendship was in shambles.

"I'm sorry," Draco said, lowering his gaze to the linoleum beneath his bare feet. "I don't feel like myself anymore."

"Can you put those away?" she said, ignoring him and forcing her voice to sound monotone. "I'm gonna make dinner. Do you want anything?"

"Huh?" He looked down and saw that his claws were out. He pulled them back, his fingernails shrinking to a normal size. "My bad."

"Tch. Yeah. So, do you want food?"

Draco sighed. Human food wasn't something he ate and she knew that. It tasted like nothing.

No, what he wanted to do was tear her throat out.

"I'm gonna sit down," was all he said.

He walked out to the living room, which was fully decorated in black and grey décor, and he tried to steel himself. The pain, the voice, his hunger . . . It was all too much.

He needed to stop this.

This wasn't how he wanted to talk to her—this wasn't indicative of his feelings for her. He wanted to go back to before all of this happened, before he was ever turned. He wished he could go back to the night it happened and take the bus home instead of walk.

He wished he wasn't a monster.

Inside, the demon was awake, livid and aware of the new sigil. His Hellfire burned away at it steadily, knowing that as long as he didn't feed off of Hermione's blood, its power would be devoured. Then nothing—not the moon, not blood— _nothing_ would keep it at bay.

Nothing would keep her safe.

Why weren't the sigils working the way they were supposed to? The ritual had stated _"for expulsion."_ So why was the demon still inside of him?

And why was it getting stronger?

It didn't make sense that the book would have such an impractical ritual written within it. What sort of expulsion ritual didn't expel the demon, weakened every moon cycle, and allowed the demon free reign to get stronger?

When he first drained the man he'd thought was drunk, there had been no clues or signs that he was possessed. Draco gone on for the duration of that month thinking he was fine.

Until the moment he'd bitten Hermione.

Her blood had touched his tongue and it was like clouds rolling away from the sky at night, spilling starlight into his mind. It tasted different—more intense, more filling. Sweeter.

And then he'd heard it.

Its voice.

Hardly more than a whisper, Draco felt like it was so loud that it brought pain to his ears. It was something that he couldn't ignore, no matter how badly he wished it would cease. All it cared about was Hermione. Hermione's blood. Her skin. Her flesh. It wanted to own her.

To devour her.

Hermione entered the living room with a plate of food in her hand, the aroma less enticing for Draco than it probably was for her. She plopped down on the armchair, pulling her knees up to her chest and balancing the plate on the arm of the chair. She watched Draco with narrowed eyes, her silence loud.

"What?" he snapped.

"Nothing." She took a bite of her food, dragging the fork out of her mouth in a slow, thoughtful manner. "I'm just thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

"Alternatives."

"Alternatives to what?" Draco shifted on the couch, his long legs outstretched and his arms crossed over his bare chest. He was trying his best to breathe past the burning beneath the new tattoo.

"Prolonging the sigil."

"Or we can just go find someone who speaks Aramaic. They can decipher the last few words."

"I think we're past that now," she replied around another mouthful. "It's only a few words that I wasn't able to understand. How important could they be? No, I think the sigil was always only supposed to be temporary. This means that we need to think of other ways to prolong things."

"What things?" Draco's hair flopped forward as he glared at the tan carpet. He let it.

"Well, we know what your issues are. You've got a demon. Cool, okay. We can't do an exorcism without killing you because you're a vampire. Awesome. You're in pain. All right—"

"Constant, burning, agonizing pain," he interjected in a mutter.

"Whatever. You're in pain. Great. But there's something else we haven't really figured out."

"What?"

"The fact that it's only working the way it is because it's _my_ blood that's infusing the holy water." She stopped to take and chew another bite. "It's myblood that it wants, right?"

Draco felt it stirring inside his mind, like an animal prowling back and forth behind the bars of a slowly-melting cage.

The demon.

"Yeah," he said.

"Then maybe we stop withholding it. Maybe we give it to him."

Inside the cage, the animal reared up and snarled.

Draco felt a strange, violent urge to shudder. His gaze snapped up to look at her through the fringe of his lashes.

"What?"

"Yeah," she said with another shrug and a bite. "Why don't I give you some of my blood and see if having it in your veins helps strengthen the magic? It's worth a shot, isn't it?"

Draco knew it was. He knew anything was worth a shot, at this point.

But she didn't get it.

"No," he said. "I don't wanna do that anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because."

She let out an incredulous laugh. "What's the big fucking deal? It's _just_ blood. I know I was against it before but desperate times . . . And now you're the one that's switching up."

"Okay, but it's not just blood," he shot back, sitting up and leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs. "It's not just blood. It's _your_ blood, and it's exactly what it wants. You want to just take a risk and give it what it wants?"

"Why's it a risk? It's trapped inside you, and we applied a fresh sigil. If we do it now, while it's still settling in, then maybe that's the key. Maybe _that's_ the missing link."

Draco clenched his fist as a particularly sharp twinge of pain shot down his arm. He closed his eyes for a moment. It felt like the monster—the animal in the cage—was seconds away from breaking free. He had to maintain control.

He had to, or else it was going to hurt her.

"It's not a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Because I said so."

"Okay, but why _not_?" She slammed her fork down with a loud _screech_. "I'm so sick of you. You never want to actually _try_ anything that might work. You just took that stupid priest's opinion and ran with it. We don't even know if what we're doing is working. But what we _do_ know—"

"No."

"What we _do know_ is—"

" _I said no, Granger!"_ Draco was shaking, fighting against the demon while fighting against his own desire to lunge for her.

" _Why not?!"_ she shouted.

"Because I can't promise that I can control myself around you! What part of that don't you understand? I am a fucking _vampire_ , and the only thing I want—the only thing I need—is blood. And the fact that the thing inside of me wants _yours_ is reason enough. I know I said earlier that it might work, but that was before . . . It was just before."

Before the demon woke up.

"I'd go into my room, behind the protection on the door. I can leave some blood in a—a cup, or something, and then go into my room."

He silenced her with an icy stare.

"You wouldn't make it down the hallway."

A flicker of fear passed over her face. It was mere seconds before it was gone and she was glowering at him again. "Then I'll go into my room, get the blood, and then put it in the hallway while you wait out here. I'll shut the door before you even start moving."

Frustration filled Draco's body, racing outward from his heart like pathways made of flame.

Why couldn't she ever stop fighting with him for even _one_ second? Why was everything a battle to the death with her? Why couldn't she just understand that he was trying to protect her, instead of constantly pushing and pushing and pushing?

Maybe he needed to show her.

Hermione was shaking her head, fork bringing another bite to her mouth when he flashed forward, across the living room, and wrapped his hand around her wrist. There was only time for a gasp to leave her lips before he'd yanked, ripping her out of the chair and up onto the tips of her toes. Her eyes widened in stages as his other hand wrapped around her throat.

"You wouldn't," Draco hissed, "make it down the hallway, Granger."

"Let me go," she whispered, her voice halting and strained as she forced it past the tight ring of his fingers. Her fingers scrabbled at his, her toes dancing as she struggled. "Please. Malfoy, _please_."

"No," he said, tone as simple and as cold as Winter. The demon watched from within. "I need you to understand."

"Understand what?" Her eyes were wild as she suffocated, frantic as they traveled back and forth between his own, searching for compassion. "Understand _what?"_

"I need you to understand that the only thing standing between you and death is me. It wants you, Granger, and it will stop at nothing to get to you if given the chance." He lifted her with ease, pulling her closer. She made a choking noise, her toes scraping the floor as he did so. He merely studied her face, watching without emotion as she struggled for air. "It wants you to fuck up like this so it can get _exactly_ what it wants."

She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them, her brows pulled together. "Wh-What does i-it w-want?"

"To consume you."

Draco let go of her.

She sank to the carpet in a heap, gasping and coughing. Her hands massaged her throat for a moment and he stood there, watching her without really seeing her. Pain coursed through his shoulder, coming from the sigil.

"I think," Hermione said in a hoarse voice as she got to her feet on shaky legs, "that it's clear."

Draco turned to go back to the couch. "That what's clear?"

"That I'm making the right decision."

He smelled iron.

Panic burst inside of him like stars as he whirled around. Her long acrylic nails were piercing her flesh, scraping upward and downward as she scratched the fuck out of her arm. Again and again, until red furrows appeared. She let out a cry that could be mistaken for pain if it weren't for the almost enraged expression she had on her face.

Blood began to bead in the broken pieces of skin, crimson against terracotta.

And then he was on her.

_We will tear the flesh from her bones._

Draco's fangs sunk into Hermione's forearm. She screamed, and it echoed up to the ceiling.

_We will suck the meat from them, until nothing remains but white._

His hands gripped her arm, claws gouging as he drank and drank and drank. He drank until her knees went weak. When she started to crumple, his arm wrapped around her waist and held her up.

The sigil burned.

He moaned.

_We will devour her cunt._

Hermione tried to pull her arm back but she was too weak. Her body was as weak as her heart was strong, and the demon loved it. It could taste it in her blood. Draco felt it's pleasure, it's euphoria spilling out into his body from the cage where it was trapped.

The sigil meant nothing to it.

_We'll tear it out with our teeth._

They fell to the floor.

No.

No, he had to fight this.

He had to fight.

Draco tore his mouth away from her arm, peeling the holes his fangs left behind wider, destroying the tattoos she had there. Hermione fell back against the chair, panting and clutching her mangled arm close to her.

He collapsed backward, propped on one hand. Digging the heel of his palm into his eye, he fought with the violence coursing through his desire, smearing her blood through his hair with his fingers.

"Go," he said, voice hoarse. "Run."

"B-But—Is it . . . ? Are you—"

" _What the fuck?!_ " he roared. " _Go! Fucking go_!"

Hermione wasted no time, scrambling to her feet and taking off in a flurry of curls down the hallway.

Draco fought as hard as he could, but he felt it. He felt the sigil failing even as he shot forward. The burning faded into pure lust for her blood as he shot to his feet, vaulted over the back of the couch, and slammed into the door right as she whipped it shut

The sigil she'd etched into the wood glowed bright white as he tried again and again to pass it. His mind had fallen into shambles, fractured pieces of basal instincts. Hunger, rage, desire, possessiveness.

She was in the room and she was his and he wanted her blood and he would have whatever he wanted.

It would have whatever it wanted.

His claws gouged into the wood of the door. He snarled. The door rattled on its hinges.

But it held.

It held, and it was the only thing that provided Draco any form of solace as he wrestled with the demon. As he wrestled with those basal instincts and tried to force them back behind the barrier of his mind.

He searched inside of himself.

The sigil's magic was still there, weak and lingering in the background. He drew upon it, wrapping it around himself like a tattered cloak as he tried to force the demon back into its cage. It was a battle, as it always was—one that Draco was sure he was going to lose.

He fell back against the wall, chest heaving with exertion and Hermione's blood cooling on his chin. He passed the back of his hand across his jaw, staring at the red painting over his tattoos, and he fought the urge to groan.

Draco sucked his fingers into his mouth.

She tasted divine.

"Granger," he said, his voice rough and hollow. "We need to find help, and fast."

There was a moment's silence and then her voice came through the door, thin and reedy.

"Is it safe to come out?"

It was never going to be safe.

"No," he purred, his tongue still licking blood off of his hand. His other hand clenched into a fist at his side. "It's not."

"How much longer?"

Draco closed his eyes and opened them, staring hard at the door as he licked blood off of the inside of his wrist.

_Soon we will have her._

_Soon she will be inside us._

_Soon she will be ours._

"Malfoy? Did you hear me? How much longer?"

"Soon, love."

She was quiet and then when she spoke again, she sounded weak. "I think I need to go to the emergency room."

Draco placed his hands against the door, watching as the sigil glowed gently, brighter and brighter. He leaned his forehead against the wood, humming at the taste of her blood on his lips. It tasted pretty.

"You're so pretty," he murmured. "Why don't you open the door so I can show you how pretty you are."

" _What_?"

Draco breathed a laugh and bit his lower lip. "Open the door, Hermione."

" _What_ did you call me? Malfoy, what the Hell is wrong with you? I need to go to the hospital!"

Draco's tongue slithered out of his mouth so he could lick the sigil. It burned him, melting the flesh as the wood splintered him. It hurt. It was agony. He tipped his head back and groaned as his body healed instantly, skin knitting back together and restoring itself.

"Open the door," he sang. "Open the door for me, love."

He could hear her heart beating. It ran in wild patterns, dancing to the melody of her fear.

"No," she said, her voice tremulous.

"Open it."

"You can get fucked."

And then he heard it, his enhanced hearing picking it up as easily as though he were standing right beside her.

She was calling someone on her phone.

Who was she calling? Why would she call someone? Why would she want anyone other than him?

How dare she?

" _Open the fucking door, you fucking whore!"_ he snarled, slamming his hands against it over and over. " _Open the fucking door or I'll rip your cunt out with my bare hands and eat it in front of you!"_

The person on the other line picked up. He could hear them trying to make sense of Hermione's hysterics.

It was the priest.

"Stay behind the sigil—stay in the room where it's safe," the priest said. "Paint a sigil on the window in blood. It'll keep it out of the room from all entry points. I'll be there as soon as I can, Miss Granger."

The window.

 _The window_.

Draco turned, flashing forward to the door, outside into the fading sunlight, and around the outside of the cottage. He didn't care if anyone saw him blurring across their peripheral vision from the sidewalk—all he cared about was getting into that room. All he cared about was getting in there, pinning her down, and fucking her until she died.

And then he would drain her.

He came to the window right as she was finishing the sigil, her fingertip sliding away from the bloodied glass.

The ire within his body simmered to embers, where it would wait until the right moment. Because he knew she had nowhere to go. If she left the bedroom, he'd be back inside before she made it one step beyond the threshold.

She was as good as his.

Tilting his chin down, Draco held her gaze without blinking, breathing, or moving. He was afraid that if he blinked, his sweet, sweet girl would disappear. If she disappeared, then he wouldn't know how she tasted and he honestly couldn't think of anything worse.

Hermione stood there, swaying back and forth with flickering eyelids. The skin on her right arm was mangled, still leaking blood. Her fingers were soaked in it. Her curls seemed to be puffing up and outward. The fear in her eyes was palpable.

Draco could almost taste it.

"Father Dumbledore is on his way," she said, taking a deep, shaky breath. "And when he gets here, you're fucked."

Draco tilted his head to the side, still not blinking. "Me? Or the boy?"

Hermione's eyes flashed. "You."

"What're you gonna do?" He smirked. "Kill me?"

She sneered in response and said nothing. They both knew he couldn't be killed. The only way he was leaving this body was if he was forced out.

He was the King of the Nine. Prince of the Seven. Lust incarnate. All who fell to him suffered in the Second for eternity.

The priest didn't have that power. No one did.

No, he was staying.

"What's your name?" she said.

Draco's smirk turned into a slow grin. "I can be whoever you want me to be. Why don't you let me in, and I can whisper it into your cunt until you come?"

A strange, revolted expression twisted on her face. "You're disgusting."

He took a step closer, until his face pressed into the windowpanes. There was another house behind him, to the left of Hermione's cottage, but he didn't bother to look behind him to see if anyone was watching him.

His tongue caressed the glass, his eyes remaining fixated upon her.

"I want to taste you."

"You should have asked me when you were Draco," Hermione replied with a twist of the lips that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Maybe I would have considered it."

His own lips curled up into another smirk.

"I'm going to fuck you until you die, love."

Hermione stared at him for a long second, and then she walked as close to the window as she could. She looked at the sigil, tracing it with her gaze before she focused on him again.

"What's your name?"

"Yours."

" _What_ is your name?"

He cocked his head to the side and bit his lower lip, his fangs sinking into the flesh until he tasted his own blood. He growled, deep within his chest, as he imagined what it would feel like to split her like an overripe peach and maul her flesh from the inside out. To drink every last drop of the blood she had left. To suck the marrow from her bones until all that she was was inside of him.

Hermione studied him for a moment and then she said, "I want to make a deal."

Draco froze, his heart stilling in his chest. His eyes narrowed to slits and he placed his hands flat against the window. The glass was cold.

"What makes you think I'm the dealmaking sort?"

"Aren't you all?"

Draco tapped one claw, scraping it down every time it landed. He licked his lips.

"It depends what you're offering."

"That depends on what you can offer me in return."

He watched her, watched her swaying and ready for him. Ready for him to devour. Waiting to be his. She'd lost a lot of blood—the way it trickled out of the wounds on her arm showed him that she didn't have long before she passed out.

The priest might not be fast enough.

Draco didn't want her dead. Dead blood didn't taste as good if it lingered.

"What do you want?" he hissed. "What can you give me?"

She answered without missing a beat. "My blood."

"I can have your blood whenever I want. Do better."

Hermione started to pace. He knew it was because she was trying to stay awake.

"My body."

"That's already mine. Better."

"Something from my future . . . ? I don't know what else . . ."

Hermione continued to pace back and forth, her breathing labored as her mind and heart raced with one another. Draco could tell she was getting weaker by the moment. He didn't want her to fall unconscious.

He needed her to let him in before the priest got here.

"But you can't—that's so—" She stopped and then turned, stumbling to the side. Her eyelids fluttered, her words coming out in a faint voice. "My soul?"

Draco slammed himself up against the window, claws screeching down the glass. It shook in its frame, just like the door had. The hunger on his face was as raw as his veins felt from the magic of the sigil tattoo.

"What do you want?" he said, voice hoarse. "I'll give you anything you want."

Hermione held one hand to her forehead, smearing a bit of half-dried blood along her temple by her curls. There was triumph in her eyes, carefully veiled.

"All right," she said. "Fine. I want you to take me to the hospital."

"What about your priest?"

She pursed her lips. "I'll tell him not to come."

"He won't believe it's you," Draco said.

"Then you'll have to suck it up and meet with him."

"He'll try to exorcise me."

"Which brings me to my other request." Hermione lifted her chin. "You have to give Draco up."

"No."

"If you don't give me everything I ask for, then you don't get what you want." She lurched forward, nearly falling against the window. Her palm braced against the glass, right beside the sigil. "If you give me what I want, I'll disrupt the sigil. But you have to get me to the hospital . . ." She took a deep, shuddering breath. ". . . And you have to give me your word that this is a binding contract."

"I get you to the hospital and give up this body." Draco ran his tongue along his teeth. "In exchange for your soul."

"Yes."

"I can heal you, you know."

"No," she said, her tone sharp. "The only way this works is if you take me to the hospital."

Suspicion rose within him. Why would she initially offer her blood, then change her mind and decide to offer her soul instead?

Hermione fell to her knees. "If you don't make a decision right the fuck now, then I'm not going to be able to agree to anything, and then the priest will get here."

"I could just leave."

"But you won't."

"He wants me to."

"Who?

"Draco."

"Did you—" Hermione looked at him, an almost desperate curiosity flickering in her irises. "Did you hurt him?"

"He's always hurting." Draco nuzzled the window with his nose, closing his eyes as he imagined what it would feel like to sink his fangs into her throat and drink from her while he disemboweled her with one claw. "It hurts to be around you. You smell so good. So sweet and so, _so_ good."

Hermione turned her face away for a moment and when she looked back at him, she was glaring.

"You know why the sigils keep failing, don't you?"

Draco slowly lifted his head, his smirk spreading once again. "Of course I do, love. Now, aren't you going to let me in?"

Hermione swallowed, struggling back to her feet again. She looked seconds away from passing out.

"A-Agreement . . . First. You agree to get me to the hospital and leave Draco's body . . . And you can have my soul. But you cannot feed off of me unless I give it to you willingly, and under no circumstances are you to fuck me until I die. You fucking freak. Got it?"

"And if I simply break the agreement?"

"If you break the agreement, then you have to tell me your name."

He grinned, all fangs. He wasn't worried about it.

If he broke the agreement and fed from her, she wouldn't live to hear the final syllable.

"Agreed."

"Good."

Hermione raised her hand and wiped it across the blood on the window, disrupting the sigil, breaking the magic.

And she was his.


End file.
